4.3 Questions Beyond Answering
The Chosen of Astor continued across the Hall of Knowledge which lead deeper into the tower. Here they found a library of sorts, similar to the one found on the lower floors. Wrynn drew from the library, trying to determine what had happened in the tower t cause such havoc. The last entries spoke of a secret that had caused the members of the tower to split into factions. Whatever custodian warded the towers populace and policed their rules had set some manner of forbiddence on the secret, severely punishing those who spoke openly of it or tried to write it down. The entry, and therefore all this trouble, appeared to have occurred 2 months ago. Cara chimed in here, mentioning that her mother had been taken hostage one month ago- raising some questions as to the timeline of events and how things could have spiraled out of control. They quickly came upon a forking path, various dormitories and other rooms laid out before them. Many of these rooms were locked but, as it turns out, the keys they had found earlier came in handy for some of the doors. Each door was marked with a symbol, their meaning not entirely clear. Usefully, whenever they had a key that matched the symbol on a door, the key was generally able to open the door, allowing the group to bypass several barriers that might otherwise have been inconvenient. Some doors remained locked, however, and these they had to navigate around. The tower itself seemed almost broken down, covered in blood as before but also marked by strange, black, vein-like growths on walls. They encountered first The Forge. This proved to be a deep well of arcane energy used for channeling, deconstructing, enchanting and experimenting. Doors nearby lead to a horrid monstrosity of bodies stitched together which breathed darkness and could regenerate freely. They were able to kill it mainly thanks to the use of an item found nearby which could disintegrate anything it was pointed at. Meanwhile, other members of the party stumbled upon the living quarters of many of the mages. While several traps had to be disarmed or triggered along the way they managed to uncover a number of magic items among the refuse of the tower, including a wand that could temporarily project invulnerability onto one target, a protective robe, a crown of wisdom that aided the mind in learning somehow, enchanted shuriken, potions of distilled wisdom of unclear effect, and a staff that could reanimate or ask question of the dead- but never both to the same corpse. Among the dormitories, however, as another surprise. On the walls was scrawled in blood the ominous phrase “we are experiments.” Continuing further together, the party was attacked by the animated dead which they had to dispatch before moving on. It was after battle here that Timmeron learned he could no longer be healed magically as the restorative spells necessary were anathema to his current state of being. Instead, when injured he could drain the life from living things in order to repair whatever necromancy bound him to this plane. Though there was a door they could not open remaining to explore, the party decided to ignore it for now and head through a portal to the next floor. More apartments greeted them and the party decided to explore as many of them as possible in the hopes that some clues could be found. One house contained nothing more than a tree bearing blue fruit which changed the skin of any who ate it blue as well. Another house bore a wall covered in outreaching hands, as if horrified mages had been imprisoned within the wall itself. The group entered the master bedroom of the apartment, finding an elderly dwarf asleep with a book beneath the pillow. When Travize attempted to wake him the dwarf vanished and the Archbishop said he could sense “evil” coming from Travize. The figures trapped in the wall below also vanished, raising far more questions. The group took the book, of course, which turned out to be a tome covering epistomancy- the study of conjuring knowledge from the world itself. The next house lead the party to be attacked by disembodied spirits. They quickly left the house, Travize managing to catch two of the spirits in a jar of mayonaise, proving that the “dwarven occultist” from Great Trench may have known more than the group gave him credit for. They then found their way into a magica maze of sorts, with various doors that could lead to any number of locations. All one needed was the proper keys to open the doors. Near the entrance they found another body, this one apparently dead of a sudden heart attack. They used the necromantic staff to ask a question of the body. They asked “how did you die” and were told that the woman had displeased the entity that dwells in the observatory, which had killed her instantly from afar. They collected a golden key from her corpse as it disintegrated from the force of the necromantic magic. According to the Ascendant, the key would allow them to take only one path through the maze- they would have to choose carefully. Fortunately, some of the doors of the maze were marked with symbols of the keys they already had, allowing the party to take a path without using the golden key at all. At the end of this path they found a circular room housing a skull giving off massive amounts of necromantic energy. The power was contained by some sort of dark, buzzing fog that hung in a depression in the ground, but the energy would boil free if the skull was lifted out of the fog. Curious as to what happened in the room, the party searched about and found little. Finally, Timmeron cast a spell to pierce the veil of time and show the party what may have happened in the room recently. A vision appeared to them of senior mages of the tower- including the Arch mage- meeting in that very room, though no skull was present in the vision. The three people discussed events in the world- particularly the Void Spawn, the Ascendant, and the problem of Albert. They decided that they needed to know at least some part of what Albert and Wrynn both knew- the same secret that had supposedly driven Wrynn mad. They had the means to learn a piece of that truth- a soul imprisoned to contain the knowledge. They summoned it- but before the magic could take effect the vision ended. It seems the same skull they had used in their ritual now sat in the center of the room. The party discussed whether or not it was worth trying to learn that information themselves or if they should destroy the skull. There was disagreement, of course, and they eventually settled for having Karhanza put a bomb on the skull tat she could activate from anywhere in the tower- just in case. Continuing their exploration of the door maze- this time with the golden key, the party discovered a room with a pool of water and two vials of liquid, one green and the other blue. Pouring them into the pool changed its color, but each seemed to negate the other. The party experimented for a bit, resulting in Sal being blue and Sajaina, Travize and Dal being deep green. They had no idea what the colors meant or did. Ignoring for the moment the other maze-path open to them- the doors marked with the death symbol, the party ascended a nearby staircase into the Arch Mage's quarters, finding the woman in a state of suspended animation, her robes, staff and a strange ball of flame sitting on a nearby bed. Using antimagic, they woke the woman up- unsure what would happen to her when the field fell. Possibly she might be killed by “the entity” or else fall back into suspended animation. In either case, the woman seemed distraught. They conversed with her for a time, learning that the Tower of Apotheosis is a living being they built around. Further, with the right 'key' one might be able to speak to the tower to convince it to give access to certain pieces of information or open locked doors, in addition to other things. Apparently the tower turned on the Arch mage for some reason. Additionally, the tower itself was NOT the entity that dwells in the observatory. At first she was reluctant to give the key to the party, but was eventually convinced of the urgency of their quest and suggested that she would be willing to do so, though it would cost her very life in the process. The party was left debating whether obtaining the key was worth the Arch Mage's life. Was it ethical? Would she die anyway? Could she help them defeat the Void Spawn? There was much to discuss. Category:Quests